Math model reveals insight into how first life forms were 'born'

March 11, 2013

An international team of physicists have revealed insights into how the very first life-forms made the jump from the non-living to the living world, by mathematically modelling biological states using energy waves called solitons.

"The model is alive: it oscillates when there isn't enough energy or matter, just like it's breathing. When matter and energy stops flowing through the system, it dies," explains Professor Nail Akhmediev from The Australian National University.

"If these processes happen in simple formations like solitons, we can imagine how the very first basic forms of life were 'born' in nature from non-living elements, such as hydrogen and oxygen."

Professor Akhmediev collaborated with Professor Helmut Brand of the University of Bayreuth in Germany and Professor Jose Soto-Crespo of the Instituto de Optica in Spain to develop the mathematical model, published in the latest edition of Physics Letters A.

"A soliton – which is a solitary energy wave that doesn't change shape over time – can be used as a model for life because it displays the simplest and most essential functions of life," he says.

"We can apply this model to complex biological systems such as the transport of nerve and muscle pulses, the processes that occur in biological membranes, and similar phenomena. Having a better understanding of solitons will in turn help us understand how our bodies work.

"At a fundamental level, we are trying to understand how life may have appeared through very simple physical processes. Using this model is a powerful approach that will help in analysing more complex situations."

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And until we can create (or re-create), then that's all we can do, really. Do it already!

Let's see something alive happening afresh, without our already-alive contamination involved. That's all we need to see. Something alive, and I'd settle for something not even contained within a membrane. I'm not asking for a lot. A spark of 'life', even if it can't reproduce, would be more than we've managed to do to date.

@jdw: You're not making much sense. In order for the phenomenon to be observable, it needs to occur within controlled conditions, mostly because life is already established in nature and that would make the formation of a different organic chemistry ex-novo in the wild essentially impossible. As such, there will always be some degree of contamination. If you can settle for that - and I see no reason why you shouldn't - then there's plenty of published research out there on self-assembling and self-replicating molecules - organic or otherwise. This is just a modelling approach, and modelling is just as useful as observations most of the time. Try to think before you type anything next time.

These are by definition very complex things, and modeling them in silico requires simplifying them to some degree.Doing "the real thing" first requires avoiding contamination -a very big problem- and then running the experiment long enough for interesting things to happen. Finally, you must examine the outcome of the experiment without contaminating the sample.I imagine the first attempts will be as frustrating as acheaving "break even" in fusion experiments.

In order for the phenomenon to be observable, it needs to occur within controlled conditions, mostly because life is already established in nature and that would make the formation of a different organic chemistry ex-novo in the wild essentially impossible.

That it occurred once is good enough for you, then? Good enough to validate your atheism, I see.

The process that encourages the kind of bio-chemical activity that results in living entities should be examined. I theorize that we should look at lichen and similar, perhaps now extinct, life forms that occur around tidal areas. Lichen grow on rock, which contain catalytic elements, and are exposed to the dehydrating influence of sunlight, another catalyst. The tide comes in and covers a primeval "growth" with water, the universal solvent. This repetitive process may cause the formation of a membrane which encapsulates the chemicals in a closed system which subsequently evolve more complex reactions. This results ultimately in unicellular eukaryotic organisms.

Richard P. Feynman: "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong" Of course, at the moment, when you can make the money only with modeling instead of expensive and tedious experiments, then the mainstream physics parasites will adopt their religion to this situation immediately.

I for one am sick and tired of idiots like yourself that disparage working scientists because they earn a living wage. Preachers also earn a living wage. Are they religious parasites?

Most scientists could make a heck of a lot more money in finance or high tech than they do in research. That's the simple truth. We are all better off because they choose to do what they do, rather than just take home the big bucks their high IQ could otherwise earn them.

In order for the phenomenon to be observable, it needs to occur within controlled conditions, mostly because life is already established in nature and that would make the formation of a different organic chemistry ex-novo in the wild essentially impossible.

That it occurred once is good enough for you, then? Good enough to validate your atheism, I see.

Just.Do.It. If it happened even once, it should be reproducible.

Try to think before you type anything next time.

Horse's neck.

You are a horses ass, so dont talk. The origins of life not being some magical creation event and it occuring as the result of natural processes and atheism ARE NOT the same thing. plenty of other religious types that arent young earth creationist accept it.

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